


unimaginable

by 26stars



Series: AU August 2020 [17]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Birth, F/M, Grief, Hospital, Miscarriage, Mourning, Photographer AU, Pregnancy, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25993003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Daisy was booked a few months ago to do a baby photoshoot at the end of February. When she hears from the father at the beginning of January, she knows it's not a good sign. Still, if there is any small bit of good she can do for a couple going through the unimaginable, she's brave enough to try.For the AU August day 19 prompt: Photographer AUFeels ahoy.
Relationships: Andrew Garner & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Andrew Garner/Melinda May, Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: AU August 2020 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860802
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56
Collections: AOS AU August 2020, Women of the MCU





	unimaginable

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't read the tags, there's a miscarriage happening. If you aren't in a good space to be reading that, maybe back out now.
> 
> This literally might be the saddest thing I have ever written.

Daisy’s winters were usually the quietest time for her photography business. Weddings tended to occur more often in the warmer months, few families wanted to get outside for portraits, and seniors preferred to take their graduation pictures either at the beginning or the end of the school year, not the middle. Thankfully, plenty of people still got engaged and had Save-the-Date pictures to take, families still reunited at holidays and sometimes wanted decent portraits, and mothers were still having babies and wanting maternity, birth, or baby photoshoots.

So when Daisy got an email to her website asking if she was free to do a baby photoshoot sometime in the month of February, she didn’t even check her schedule before responding.

_Sure thing. I charge $300 for a two-hour shoot, since there’s a little more involved with infants. When’s the due date? Do you have any themes already in mind? Do you know yet if it’s a boy or girl?_

The potential client responded that evening.

**_Wonderful! The due date is February 18 th, and we’re having a girl. Her name’s going to be Lani. My wife would prefer no overtly girly props—some flowers would be nice, but not too much pink, no big bows, etc. We’re doing her nursery in purple and gray, if that gives you an idea of her style. _ **

Daisy smiled to herself, trying to picture it.

_That sounds lovely! And I love the name. Okay, well I generally wait until a baby is one week old before coming over for a shoot—by then, you will have an idea of her schedule, when you might expect her to be asleep or awake, and be a little more settled in as parents. So I’ll put you down for the last week of February, and I’ll just need to you let me know if your baby arrives earlier and you need to change the date. Also, I’ll need a $100 deposit for a booking. All the information is on my page._

**_Perfect. Thank you so much. See you in February!_ **

The money hit Daisy’s account the next day, and she marked the appointment for the Garner family in her calendar before going back to editing the singular autumn wedding she was scheduled for this year.

Just a week after Christmas, however, she got an email from Mr. Garner again.

**_I’m afraid we have to cancel our appointment. Is it possible to get a refund for the deposit?_ **

Daisy could think of a couple of reasons someone would cancel a baby photo session, and none of them were good. Feeling sick, she typed a cautious reply.

_I’m sorry to hear that. I understand this is a very personal situation, but if you can tell me why you have to cancel, it can determine what happens next._

The father seemed to be near his email, because he responded rather quickly, and Daisy’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest as she read.

**_There was no heartbeat on the monitor at my wife’s appointment today. They’ve done several tests and confirmed it. She’s going to have to be delivered in the next few days, but we won’t be getting to bring our baby home._ **

_I am so, so sorry for your loss,_ Daisy wrote back with tears in her eyes for people she’d yet to even meet. _Sadly, this isn’t the first time this has happened in my business, and my policy is to offer you both a refund and my services. I understand hospitals do not let families take their babies home after a loss, so if you would still like pictures of your family with your daughter after her delivery, I am still willing and available to be there when you go in. I can photograph the birth, or just do pictures of you all together after the fact. I understand this is an incredibly painful and personal time, however, and you may not want anyone else there. You can talk about it with your wife and let me know what you would like to do._

_Again, I am very sorry for your loss._

Daisy didn’t hear back from the man until the next morning.

**_We’ve talked about it and decided that we still want something more than a footprint to remember her by. My wife doesn’t want anyone with us for the birth, and maybe for some time after, but if you are available today, we’ll be going in this afternoon for her induction. Lani could be born by evening._ **

_Absolutely. Which hospital will I find you at? Here’s my number so you can text me when you’re ready for me to come…_

~

Daisy had her usual camera bag over one shoulder as she signed in at the nurse’s station in the maternity ward late that night. She remembered what the husband had said about not wanting pink, but she had still brought a tote bag with a few small things that could be put on the baby if the parents wanted them. Maybe just a headband, or a pretty blanket…

She was directed to a room near the end of the hall, and Daisy cautiously knocked before stepping back to wait.

The husband opened the door. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, but the look in his eyes made him seem very small at that moment.

“I’m Daisy,” she said, perhaps unnecessarily, since his eyes had already fallen to her camera bag.

“Andrew,” he said quietly, shaking the hand she offered. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“I’m very sorry it’s this way,” Daisy said as the man stepped out into the hall with her, shutting the door. “How is your wife doing?”

Andrew dropped his hands into his pockets, letting out a breath and looking towards the ceiling. “Physically? Fine. No complications in the delivery. Everything else…”

“Of course,” Daisy whispered. “And yourself? Do you all still want to do this? I understand if you don’t.”

The man exhaled heavily again, looking down at the floor now. “No, we…we talked about it. We both still want this. We’ve already had a little time with her…alone…”

There were tears in his eyes, and Daisy touched his arm gently. “Take all the time you need. I’ll wait as long as you want.”

The man finally met her eyes briefly. “Thank you for coming. Let me talk to Melinda, see if she’s ready…”

Daisy nodded and stepped back as Andrew disappeared into the room again, and she kept herself busy by assembling her camera, checking her memory card, checking the settings…

He was back at the door in only a moment. “She’s ready. Come on in.”

Daisy had done this once before, but a scene like this wasn’t something a person could really get used to or be ready for. Inside, the mother was propped up in her bed, still in a hospital gown and with a white-blanket bundle in her arms. She didn’t look up from it as Daisy entered, so she just quietly set her bags down and moved her camera from her shoulder to around her neck.

“I’ll just shoot some candid shots of the three of you for a little bit,” she says quietly to both of them. “You don’t have to look or pose. Just take your time.”

Andrew nodded and moved back to his wife’s bedside, leaning over the side of it to put his arm around her shoulders and look down at the baby with her. Daisy raised her camera and started shooting away.

She had a great camera with a fairly quiet shutter, but it still felt loud in the somber space as she moved quietly around the room, capturing the family of three from different angles. She knelt for a shot of their faces looking down, backed towards the wall to shoot the profile, around the foot of the hospital bed for the straight-on…and after a few minutes, she asked for the okay to move closer. The wife nodded, and Daisy stepped in to shoot downwards of them looking at their baby.

The last pre-term birth she’d photographed hadn’t been as far along, so Daisy was a little startled by how close to a full-term baby this one looked—just a little small. The baby had a hospital-issue hat on, but some dark, wispy hairs peeked out from beneath it. She had a precious face, a beautiful shade of tan, and if Daisy didn’t know better, she might have believed the baby was just sleeping in her mothers arms.

After shooting a few more candid frames, Daisy asked the parents if they would be comfortable lifting the baby up closer to their faces, holding her together. The wife nodded and moved wordlessly, and Daisy directed their pose quietly before stepping back and clicking the shutter. They did a few more in the same minute—the parents’ hands clasped over the back of the blanket, around the back of the tiny head…

“That’s enough.”

It was the first time the mother had spoken, but Daisy didn’t need her to say anything else.

“Okay,” she said immediately, lowering her camera. As she did, the wife—Melinda—looked up at her, making eye contact for the first time. Her dark, red-rimmed eyes had so much in them—and not only tears—that Daisy both wished she could capture it on film and also that she could wrap the woman in a hug.

“I’m very sorry,” she said softly as she pulled her camera off to her side, her throat going tight. “I can’t even imagine.”

The mother held her gaze for just a moment longer, but then she looked back down at her baby.

“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly. It appeared to be all she can manage, because her throat was obviously working against a sob.

Daisy feinted towards her to touch her comfortingly, but then she forced herself back, made herself turn towards the bags she’d left on the chair… Photography was one of the most intimate businesses out there and also one of the loneliest. People like herself were invited into some of the most personal, private, intimate moments in people’s lives, but there was always a distance, a requirement to view but not participate. Still, she had lived some moments of people’s lives far more intimately than they had—by the hundredth of a second—and that could be both a blessing and a curse.

Today, it couldn’t be anything but the second.

“I’ll email you once I’ve edited the photos,” she said in the couple’s direction, though she didn’t know if either of them was looking. “Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

“Thank you,” the husband called after her, but Daisy could barely glance back for fear she wouldn’t make it out of the room.

Out in the hall, she took a few deep breaths, disassembled her camera, and closed it up in its bag.

She waited until she was all the way to the elevator before she broke down and wept.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't something I wrote lightly--I've walked through this with a handful of my friends already (one very late in her pregnancy), and it's still a loss I can't imagine.


End file.
